


Magenta

by lol-phan-af (lol_phan_af)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 22:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7775701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lol_phan_af/pseuds/lol-phan-af
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Magenta…that’s what I call it when I get that way. All kinds of feelings tumbling all over themselves. Well you know, you’re not quite blue, because you’re not really sad. And although you’re a little bit jealous you wouldn’t say you’re green with envy. And every now and then you realize you’re kind of scared but you’d hardly call yourself yellow…I hate that feeling. Just hate it. And I hate the color magenta. That’s why I named it that. Magenta. No way to really explain it but, fortunately between friends you don’t have to.” ~ Blanche Devereaux, The Golden Girls</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magenta

_Magenta._  
  
It's a phrase he learns while sitting beside Alex on the floor watching The Golden Girls on tv. They can't sit on the couch because Lafayette is asleep on it and they watch it because Alex missed it yesterday and Frasier is about to come on which means Alex is about to get bitter.  
  
It's almost one in the morning, Alex has a test tomorrow and Hercules is tired, but they stay awake because sleep isn't as comforting as this. Hercules watches his eyes open and close as he struggles to stay awake, Hercules wonders when the last time he slept was.  
  
He listens to the woman on tv explain Magenta, explain her reasoning for naming it that. He forgets her name but bets Alex would know it if he asks.  
  
Hercules can't remember ever feeling like that. He must've at some point, that precise but often undefined mix of emotions, but when he tries to think of a time when he did, his mind is blank. He tries to think harder, but Alex is leaning against his arm and Hercules doesn't want to think about anything else.  
  
Alex laughs beside him, strained and tired but Hercules is in love with it almost as much as he's in love with Alex. His face is illuminated by the glow of the screen, bathing him in the yellow glow of the tv kitchen set walls. He laughs harder than necessary, because it's almost one in the morning and he's balancing on the edge of in his right mind and out of it.  
  
The episode ends and Frasier comes on so Alex turns the tv off and goes back to leaning against Hercules' arm. His hands are folded, legs crossed at the ankles ahead of him, feet just hitting the coffee table.  
  
"Have you ever felt like that?" he asks, doesn't sit up.  
  
"Probably. Have you?"  
  
"All the time."  
  
_Magenta._  
  
The first time Hercules feels it, he _feels_ it. It's underneath his skin and it's burning and he feels it choked up in his throat when he tries to breathe. His hands are sweating and his right one is still curled around the doorknob. He's one step in the apartment and one step out of it.  
  
John is pressing Alex against the back of their couch, kissing him like he's trying to find what's left of his dignity between Alex's tonsils. Alex has his hands curled but he's still trying to grip John's waist despite that.  
  
He recognizes it, he remembers that night and the question Alex gave and the way he answered it. He remembers what Alex said and he remembers the way he could smell Alex's shampoo if he turned his head to the right angle. He remembers laughing and trying not to laugh because if he got too loud then Lafayette would wake up and give him that look that makes his stomach turn with how guilty it makes him feel. 

He remembers it and what the woman on the show said and how abnormal it was to feel it and know it.  
  
"Hercules!" John says, and his lips are red and his voice is rough and Hercules wants to run from it as much as he wants to be the cause of it.  
  
"I-Sorry if I, uhm, I'm gonna go," he stutters, closing the door and leaving. He runs down the stairs, watches his feet as he rushes down, sees Lafayette pass him but doesn't try and stop them to warn them.  
  
Hercules runs to just outside the building and collapses against the outside wall of it. He doesn't want to cry but he doesn't feel okay so he thinks it might be the only thing to do. When he tries he can't do it and he can't force it so he slides down the wall and tries to catch his breath.  
  
He's not out there for long when Lafayette joins him, sets a bottle of whiskey between them and acts as if they're not going to get looks for it. They don't look at him, but they know he's looking at them. Tears fill their eyes and Hercules wonders whether they feel like he does or not.  
  
"Take it."  
  
He does.  
  
_Magenta._  
  
Hercules knows this feeling now like it's his default emotion. It's always there, lurking, walking hand in hand with that memory of John and Alex and every other memory of them that he's walked in on in the past month because they can't seem to confine themselves into one of their own bedrooms.  
  
He wants to be happy for them. He wants to smile when the kiss each other because he's happy that they've seen it after so long. He wants to wiggle his eyebrows and laugh when they talk about each other without the other one there. He wants that, isn't sure he'll ever get it.  
  
He tells himself to do these things voluntarily so he can blend, become a background character in his own life story. He doesn't do them as much as he thinks he should, thinks he's being too obvious. He's giving himself up, he's the spy and they're suspecting him and it's only a matter of time before they start asking questions he has no answers to.  
  
"I love him," John tells Hercules as he stares down at Alexander in his lap. He's asleep and he's gorgeous and Hercules knows that but he can't say it. John traces his hairline with careful fingers, trying not to wake him up.  
  
"That's nice," Hercules says, and it is, but he doesn't mean it as much as he says it.  
  
"Have you ever loved someone so much that it hurt you?" John asks.  
  
"No, I can't say that I have." He's lying through his teeth. Acting. He's acting. This is a play and he's the main actor and John is the only person awake in the audience because his life is so damn pathetic that everyone else fell asleep.  
  
"I hope you do someday," John whispers, clears his throat as quietly as he can.  
  
"Me too."  
  
Acting.  
  
_Magenta._  
  
Hercules has been defining this feeling. He's studying it, trying to find a way to describe it beyond the quote that the woman, who's name he learned is Blanche, on tv said that he now has memorized and repeats it like a prayer. He finds that he can't, he can only describe it in instances, in things that he experiences that make him feel that way.  
  
Feeling Magenta is waking up in the middle of the night on the couch to Lafayette straddling Alex and smirking. It's Hercules wanting to go find John wherever he is and tell him, it's wanting to stay here and see what happens. It's watching Lafayette do something with his hips and it's Alex tightening his grip on them and it's Lafayette laughing and John coming into the living room and telling them to shut up because Hercules will hear them and wake up.  
  
Feeling Magenta is Lafayette pulling Alexander up and dragging him to John's bedroom while John follows. It's knowing that it's John's room because the door creaks when they open it and it's being jealous. It's hearing Alex's laugh turn into something else from where Hercules is lying and it's him refusing to get up because the floor creaks too and they'll hear it. It's him lying awake until they all leave for one of their shared classes without saying goodbye to him and it's him noticing the bruise sucked onto the side of John's neck.  
  
It's knowing that they don't love him the way he loves them and it's trying not to cry and doing it anyway. It's Magenta being the only thing he feels, it's it being the color he sees when he closes his eyes. It's hating it and it's crying so hard that he chokes and coughs until he gets a headache.  
  
They come back later, John holding Alex's hand and Lafayette following but keeping their hands in their pockets. John and Alex go to Alex's room this time and Lafayette stays behind and looks at Hercules who is staring straight ahead because if he looks at them he'll cry and he knows that.  
  
"I'll talk to them," they say, walking over and kissing him on the side of his head.  
  
The bottle of whiskey that Lafayette handed him three weeks ago sits on their kitchen counter. Hercules isn't looking at it but he can feel it taunting him, sitting on the counter like it's waiting for him to give in.  
  
He turns around to face it, takes a deep breath, doesn't drink it.  
  
_Magenta._  
  
Hercules doesn't get off of the couch. He stays on it while he listens to hushed whispers from Alex's room. Someone squeals and someone else hisses in response and Hercules asks himself if they're arguing or agreeing and isn't satisfied that he doesn't know.  
  
The door opens and they walk out and Hercules' heart is being broken by them but damn if they don't look good doing it. He sits up and the world is right side up again but Alex has tears in his eyes and John is holding Lafayette's hand so tight that it looks painful for them. Lafayette is smiling at him, bouncing on their feet from how excited they are.  
  
"Hercules," Alex says, his voice cracking. One tear falls down his face and he sniffs and Hercules doesn't know what this is about but he wants to.  
  
"If you think, for one second, that we don't love you just as much as we love each other, then you go against everything I thought of you since the day we first met," Lafayette whispers. Hercules swallows, looks up at them because he doesn't know what else to do.  
  
"I just felt weird, you know? I felt Magenta," he says it and watches Alex remember. He watches him smile, his whole face lighting up. John and Lafayette don't understand, as confused as Hercules has been the past few months.  
  
"You remembered," Alex says, more tears falling down his face. Hercules doesn't say how he never forgot, how it's been the word he's lived by since he learned it.  
  
Alex goes over to him, kisses gently like he'll break. He pulls away and he's still smiling and the tears have stopped but they're still on his skin and Hercules wants to wipe them away but he doesn't.  
  
This isn't Magenta.  
  
This is clarity.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on impulse at two in the morning and I'm sorry


End file.
